Home » Side Event: COPOLAD II: Towards an Improved Response to Drugs Challenges

Side Event: COPOLAD II: Towards an Improved Response to Drugs Challenges

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Andrew Gordon, Ministry of National Security, Trinidad and Tobago: Most drugs found within our territories are externally produced. The Caribbean is interested in repeating seminars on trafficking for law enforcement. Would like to tackle precursor chemicals and NPS, but concerned statistics on use and misuse to synthetic drugs are scarce.

Javier Andres Florez, MOJ Colombia: Three points: what COPOLAD meant to Colombia in the past. The Colombian early warning system is the best. COPOLAD is valuable contribution. This phase should be more about action than learning. We are glad to be apart of the programme. Colombia an important donor of knowledge, now available to the Latin American continent. COPOLAD asserts human rights and public health and evidence-based policies, and is very useful and important for Colombia.

Alexis Goosdeel, Director EMCDDA: Welcomes the floor. COPLIAD 1 was a success because of strong institutional support. One of the reasons this is a regional project is because it is multi-disciplinary and multi dimensional. Different approaches and points of view have to be bought together. The justification for our involvement is that we are the references point for EU drug enforcement. We have the analysis and scientific capacity of the EU behind us. The added value we expect to give to this initiate is that we intended to serve both members states and EU members equally. What we expect to gain is to improve our knowledge base on the global drug problem. Countries should not be afraid to produce analysis even without all the data; this helps towards gap analysis, which is important. The key, three factors of success: shared management, need to continue to work to develop thematic clusters, maintain cooperation between EU and Americas. Through COPOLAD.

CHAIR: Opens to the floor.

UNODC: Latin American section: COPLIAD has been important. Excited to see and learn about this second phase of COPILAD. Cooperation between EU and Latin American Countries has included the development of at least 25 different initiatives trying to tackle the drug problem from many different angles.

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